Moberly closes out third quarter with 10-0 run to pull away from Hannibal

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By Chuck Embree, MI Sports Reporter

Moberly Monitor-Index - Moberly, MO

By Chuck Embree, MI Sports Reporter

Posted Feb. 8, 2013 at 3:00 PM

By Chuck Embree, MI Sports Reporter

Posted Feb. 8, 2013 at 3:00 PM

Moberly

Clinging to a 1-point advantage, the Lady Spartans returned to the floor following a time out with about 2 minutes remaining and would score 10 unanswered points to close out the third quarter Thursday, and Moberly sent the Hannibal Pirates packing for home absorbing a 50-40 loss.

“I know our guards were getting tired but we told them during the timeout that we really needed them to dig down deep inside and fight through this right now and to keep going at it hard,” said Moberly girls coach Trisha Lyons. “We told the girls during a timeout in the third quarter that we can’t just keep exchanging buckets with them. We need to get some defensive stops to be able to move ahead of Hannibal more. Our full court press bothered them, and that helped us finish out that third quarter really well.”

Last night’s home victory evens Moberly’s season record to 10-10 and the Lady Spartans are now 5-3 in North Central Missouri Conference play.

Hannibal (7-11, 2-7 NCMC) scored the first basket of the evening, but Moberly would quickly grab control for much of the first half thereafter. The Lady Spartans led 12-7 after the opening period and their largest margin was 15-8 following Brittany Kroner’s made free throw with 6:24 left.

But Hannibal picked themselves up and chipped away at their deficit, tying the score at 16 on a Theresa Sheffer layup 4 minutes later.

The conference rivals exchanged baskets going in to the break to be knotted at 19, and the trend continued in the third quarter.

“At halftime we talked about how we were wanting to pick up our defensive pressure and going to a 5-down full court man. That was a big key to our game that helped us win,” said Reghan Stuart. “We knocked down a lot of our free throws tonight and got some awesome rebounds from Jessica Godwin. She really worked it hard. There was some good pressure on the ball from Taylor Fusselman. It was just a good all around effort by our team tonight.”

Moberly’s press in the second half allowed the Lady Spartans to generate a 7-point lead with about 4 minutes left, but when Hannibal began to rotate players on and off the floor it appeared Moberly players became about two steps slower and that allowed the Pirates to climb within 29-28 at 1:48 and prompt a time out.

Lyons’ pep talk seemingly inspired the Lady Spartans as they managed to jet off those crucial 10 straight points and never looked back.

The run featured a nifty defensive effort by Stuart while she was guarding Hannibal’s Lauren Holliday above the top of the key.

There was a little over a minute left when the Moberly junior stole the ball and made a conventional 3-point play to extend the Lady Spartans lead to 34-28. Moberly led 39-28 when the period ended.

Page 2 of 2 - “They were overplaying our defense and I saw where their guard was not protecting the ball very closely so I had an opportunity to go after it and did,” said Stuart. “I was able to take the ball hard to the hole, putting up a left hand layup, got fouled and made a 3-point play out of it.”

Also during that decisive third quarter Ronni Graves was left open for her to drop in two of her 3-pointers of the evening and Fusselman had one.

Stuart went 6-for-7 at the free throw line and scored a game-high 15 points. Fusselman scored 10 of her 12 points during the second half of play. Graves hit three 3s to score nine points while Kroner also scored nine. Godwin contributed three points while both Jessica Lawrence and Molly Burke made a free throw.

The Lady Spartans went 15-for-28 at the stripe, and the Pirates made 5 of 10.